The North Carolina Parole Commission has paroled Jesse Ernest Handy, Sr., 68, white male, who was living at the Shady Grove Mobile Home Park along U.S. Highway 70 in Mebane when he was charged with first-degree rape in October 1991.
Handy was subsequently convicted of first-degree rape and a second-degree sex offense, both felonies, at the conclusion of a jury trial in Alamance County superior court in March 1992, according to his court file. He was given a life sentence.
However, North Carolina’s Parole Commission announced last Thursday that Handy’s case had been approved for parole.
State sentencing laws that were in place when he was convicted require the parole commission to conduct an annual review of all cases involving offenders who may be eligible to be paroled.
In July 1994, the state Supreme Court declined Handy’s request to review an earlier ruling by the N.C. Court of Appeals that upheld his convictions.
Handy and two other men were convicted of raping and sexually assaulting a 21-year-old mentally-disabled woman.
Rodney Dale King, then 28, white male, also was convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to life in prison, according to the North Carolina Department of Corrections (DOC).
Sammy Harris Daniel, then 22, white male, was convicted of a second-degree sexual offense and sentenced to 12 years in prison at March 1992. He was paroled in July 1997, according to the DOC.
Handy had not been released from prison by press time. He is currently listed as an inmate at the Alexander Correctional Institution, a close-security prison for men located about 110 miles southwest of Alamance County in Taylorsville.
